


greatly exaggerated

by TrisB



Category: Star Trek: The Next Generation
Genre: Additional Warnings Apply, Canonical Character Death, Community: where_no_woman, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-01
Updated: 2010-06-01
Packaged: 2017-10-09 22:10:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/92138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TrisB/pseuds/TrisB
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Sito Jaxa of her camp stories would have been nerves-free, now, that fantastical fearless Sito Jaxa would never shake as the border guards inspected the shuttle.</p>
            </blockquote>





	greatly exaggerated

**Author's Note:**

> For the prompt, "Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated."
> 
> Additional warning for very vaguely implied non-con.

Time in the labor camps never passed quickly enough and so to keep the days moving, keep the sun mercifully setting, keep her little sister from crying, Jaxa learned to tell tales.

They had been her father's, when her father still lived. His were adapted from ancient epics and low-brow theater alike, made-up-as-he-went along mishmashes of half-remembered broadcast serials, cautionary stories of the _pah'wraiths_ and (she now realized) flat-out wish-fulfillment. Jaxa's were lesser, at first, uncertain and reined by grief, but her narratives grew along with the desperate leaps of imagination required to make it through the nights and days. The tales she told were no longer about the vidstars of her father's youth but about _them_, only better: Sito Marra, liberator of the camps — Sito Jaxa, iron-spined informer — Sito Taryx, who escaped her imprisonment as a Cardassian officer's comfort woman and left a bloody trail in her wake all the way back to her daughters. Flights of fancy were not all a good yarn relied on; the best had strength of conviction, too.

It was easy, when it came to it, to tell a lie for her friends when the Academy board of inquiry pressed the issue. All those years of practice had to be good for something.

She'd never known, though, what it was all practice for — after all these years, here she was, made up and handcuffed and in the hands of a Cardassian Federation spy. The Sito Jaxa of her camp stories would have been nerves-free, now, that fantastical fearless Sito Jaxa would never shake as the border guards inspected the shuttle. She'd breathe steadily, plan of escape coolly replaying in her mind. She'd slip into the escape pod silent and stealthy; she'd be back joking and laughing in Ten Forward before she knew it, glasses clinking. Her chair would lean back and she'd smile, saucy. "You know I can't tell you where I went, Lavelle," she'd tease. "I have a duty to uphold."

The border guard's eyes lingered on her longer than she could understand. Dal was already punching in coordinates to continue on his way into her greatest enemy's territory. The guard muttered something to the one behind him, and she couldn't make it out.

She would say, "What'd you think I was, dead?"


End file.
